Excerpt from:

Helen Huddleson, by Amanda McKittrick Ros

Why you should buy a copy of your very own:

This was an author who was confident that her books would be admired for the next thousand years, and when the book critics dared to disagree, she described them as "auctioneering agents of Satan". As far as I'm concerned, she should be universally celebrated.

In this scene...

Reformed rake Lord Raspberry is berating Madam Pear, who has kidnapped his wife and tried to put her to work in a brothel. It's really best to read this stuff out loud.



"Madam. How dare you? I say--how dare you? You have dragged my poor innocent dove--my wife--my angel into your seething saloon of sin and shame, to rob her of all the charm and grace and place her in the singed list of the loose to be in Co. with your train of degraded elegance. Give my little rural ruby set in the folds of innocence she wears, whose mind is as pure as the balm of heaven, within whose breasts sin hath never concealed itself. I say--give her me with a robe of rags, a mind of modesty, a heart of horror for all things unclean and hands untainted by the gruesome grasp of vice, rather than a princess--a duchess--a countess--a mimicking madonna decked with diamonds the purest, rubies the rarest, pearls of matchless lustre (produced by mechanical and mischievous means) and the defiled non-trappings some of our ugly-faced have-you-believe cream of aristocracy don to impersonate heaven's purest virgin of Babylonian blood and bearing, thereby aiming to achieve what is disgusting in the all-vacillating team of kindred humanity. I say, Madam, give me my wife rather than all these sistered aforesaid mentioned!

--Amanda McKittrick Ros

Readers, I love this woman.

Labels: Amanda McKittrick Ros, Snippet